Tribal lands provide forest management laboratory for mainstream university students

Abstract

Northern Arizona University (NAU) faculty and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) foresters initiated a partnership to expose NAU School of Forestry (SoF) graduate students to tribal forest management practices by incorporating field trips to the 1.68-million acre Fort Apache Indian Reservation as part of their silviculture curriculum. Tribal field trips were contrasted and coconvened with field trips to national forests to allow students to gain a unique perspective of the specific differences, challenges, and diversity of management and silvicultural practices ongoing in Indian Country. Field trips were intended to educate students beyond the dominant paradigm of forest management and to consider the broad diversity of management and forest types that exist on tribal lands. This article presents perspectives from the White Mountain Apache Tribe, BIA Fort Apache Agency staff, and faculty and graduate students in the SoF on the value of incorporating tribal lands as part of graduate students’ forestry curriculum.